Last weekend, Rock Star and I bottled our first mead from a Northern Brewer kit. I had visions of sipping slightly sweet, delicately flowery liquor by now.

Fermentation started in mid-October, and I faithfully added the provided nutrients on the prescribed schedule.

Sterilizing the bottles is the most important step in homebrew.

I’d like to say that leaving the mead in primary the entire time up to bottling was shear genius, but it was really just laziness. I did taste test the mead prior to bottling last weekend. It could likely strip paint at this point.

Transferring the paint stripper mead to the bottling bucket.

I really, really hope it mellows a bit in the bottles.